Factors required for a good WordPress hosting

There should be no downtime of servers and loss of your website resources. You need timely backups, so in case there are some troubles handling your WordPress site, the hosting should be able to stand up.

Test Case Study

I would like to compare the Inmotion Hosting (IMH) VPS-1000S or (VPS-1000HA-S currently) and SiteGround (SG) GoGeek plans in terms of web page loading speed, mainly for WordPress sites. I tested the same web pages without any modification on both the hosting to get a comparison of loading pace.

For the detailed features of both these plans, you can refer the following pages.

SiteGround vs Inmotion Hosting – Few Differences

First of all, I would like to talk about the comparison of prices between these two plans. Though both the hosting services talk of discount plans, the IMH-VPS-1000S plan is generally $29.99/month on first purchase. The SG-GoGeek plan is generally $14.95/month on initial purchase.

SiteGround Pricing of GoGeek Hosting Plans

Inmotion Hosting VPS Plans Pricing with a (star notice)

Just like any hosting plan, the renewal prices are higher in both the cases. For IMH-VPS-1000S plan you need to spend $44.99/month compared to SG-GoGeek plan of $29.95 for renewal of hosting services.

Another major difference between both the hosting plans is that GoGeek clearly mentions on its web hosting plan page that its GoGeek plan is suitable for 100k visits per month (approx).

But IMH does not give any clear details about pageviews or visits for its VPS plan. I have several times talked with their technical support, but they were reluctant to give a picture.

What is the comparison of Storage

But in comparison of disk spaces, IMH gives a higher fault tolerant disk space of 60GB for its VPS-1000S plan, compared to the GoGeek plan which gives only 30GB. So if you are a media freak or photography enthusiast, involved in uploading big files like videos, photoshop files etc. than you are on a limited budget for GoGeek.

But generally, WordPress bloggers use different author resources (both free and paid) to upload their media files. These services provide much higher disk space. But they differ in the speed of transfer and amount of bandwidth. So it’s highly impossible to compare such media usage services.

Comparison of Page Loading Speed with IMH-VPS-1000S and SG-GoGeek plans

For both the cases, I have taken the same web pages. Also I have conducted my case-study in 3 stages.

In stage 1,

I just used the hosting services only. These include the default resources and benefits that come up with these plans. But in both the VPS-1000S and GoGeek plans, I didn’t use their cache mechanisms. Both the hosting services provide their own caching methods, which definitely improves the page loading speed.

In stage 2,

I used the default hosting with the W3TC plugin. This is to observe on how the cache techniques provide benefit to the WordPress user or blogger, along with the resources provided by the hosting plans. By default, W3TC very much reduces the page loading time, as it caches many resources including static files.

In stage 3,

I used the hosting plan and W3TC and Cloudflare (CF) free service. As you know CF is a CDN technology, which has its servers at multiple locations around the world, which caches the static resources and files, which can be quickly accessed by visitors near to that location.

Stage #1 Comparison : IMH-VPS-1000s and SG-GoGeek

Using just IMH – server, I tested the page load speed of the test web page. I used to different page load speed testing tools – Pingdom and GTmetrix free services. I used Pingdom to test the resource page, from different server – client locations – New York, Dallas, Melbourne.

So these client locations mimic, as though the page is loading from that particular location. The GTmetrix provides only the Vancover, Canada location as the testing service for free.

Inmotion Hosting VPS alone

New York City, New York, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

2.4MB

4.08s

88

41%

2.6MB

4.19s

88

40%

2.6MB

4.50s

88

37%

Dallas, Texas, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

2.4 MB

2.90s

94

56%

2.2MB

2.99s

64

54%

2.4MB

3.14s

79

52%

2.2MB

2.85s

64

57%

Melbourne, Australia

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

2.5MB

7.73s

86

19%

2.5MB

8.46s

86

17%

2.5mb

8.55s

86

17%

2.5mb

8.37s

86

17%

Vancouver, Canada

Total Page Size

Page Load Time

Requests

2.25mb

3.6s

66

2.30mb

3.6s

70

2.20mb

4.0s

68

Using the SiteGround server, these results were produced, with other things remaining identical. I also used the same server locations for Pingdom tests in both the cases.

SiteGround WordPress Hosting alone

New York City, New York, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6MB

1.77s

76

76%

1.6MB

1.64s

76

78%

1.6MB

1.91s

76

74%

Dallas, Texas, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6MB

2.02s

72

72%

1.5MB

1.70s

74

77%

1.6MB

2.21s

72

68%

1.6MB

1.66s

76

78%

Melbourne, Australia

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6MB

6.51s

74

24%

1.6MB

5.59s

75

29%

1.6MB

4.86s

75

34%

1.6MB

4.81s

75

34%

Vancouver, Canada

Total Page Size

Page Load Time

Requests

1.48MB

3.6s

68

1.52MB

3.5s

69

1.43MB

2.3s

59

Conclusions for Stage #1

As you can see for the NewYork server, the SiteGround server reports much less page size compared to the Inmotion Hosting VPS server. The main difference is in the page loading times for this particular server. I have to mention here, that in both the cases, the servers were located in United States.

So naturally, it is expected that the page load times from US server testing locations will be less. But still SiteGround reports less web page speed times. This can be attributed to the different type of configuration used by both the hosting services in their respective plans.

Comparision of page loading times of different servers

But the exact reason, why SiteGround reports much less page load times for NewYork serves can only be answered by their technical team.

As for the Dallas server, the SiteGround server reports a 1 sec less average page load time compared to the Inmotion Hosting VPS server. There is also a reduction in page size and number of requests.

As for the Melbourne server, the average loading speed of the test web page has lot improved in the case of SiteGround compared to Inmotion Hosting. There is a reduction of 1 to 2 seconds for different repeated tests.

But the interesting aspect is here.

When I tested the same web page after emptying the browser cache with GTmetrix (another speed loading testing tool), the page loading times were found to be the same. So this test server and testing tool, do not show any variation MUCH for both SiteGround and Inmotion Hosting.

Stage #2 – Using W3TC plugin alongwith Default hosting

The results with Inmotion Hosting server were as follows for different client locations.

New York City, New York, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.5mb

2.43s

74

64%

1.7mb

2.64s

91

60%

1.8mb

4.34s

91

38%

1.7mb

2.82s

91

57%

Dallas, Texas, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

1.47s

82

82%

1.6mb

1.42s

82

82%

1.6mb

2.28s

82

67%

1.5mb

1.33s

67

84%

Melbourne, Australia

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.5mb

4.04s

77

41%

1.7mb

6.68s

89

23%

1.5mb

4.07s

77

41%

1.5mb

4.75s

77

35%

Vancouver, Canada

Total Page Size

Page Load Time

Requests

1.40mb

4.8

68

1.41mb

3.2

68

1.50mb

2.2

68

1.47mb

4.3

65

As you can see the tests were repeated thrice or four times, to see the average page load times. Also the loading speed on first time test, were not taken, as initially the servers will try to cache the web pages. You should always check with these tools on second or third time. Also, checking the page loading times repetitively gives an average time to compare.

The results for the SiteGround server were as follows.

New York City, New York, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

1.14s

76

87%

1.6mb

1.09s

76

88%

1.6mb

0.997s

76

90%

1.6mb

1.52s

76

81%

Dallas, Texas, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

1.02s

76

89%

1.6mb

2.33s

76

66%

1.6mb

1.87s

76

74%

1.6mb

2.29s

93

66%

Melbourne, Australia

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

6.03s

87

26%

1.5mb

4.88s

75

34%

1.5mb

4.41s

75

38%

1.5mb

4.80s

75

34%

Vancouver, Canada

Total Page Size

Page Load Time

Requests

1.48mb

2.4

68

1.45mb

4.5

68

1.50mb

4.1

70

1.52mb

2.3

71

Conclusions for Stage #2

As you can see the above tables, you can clearly find the results. After using the W3TC plugin, the Inmotion Hosting VPS server page loading times drastically reduced. You can see a change of 1 to 2 secs in repetitive tests from different server – client locations.

Also the difference between Inmotion Hosting and Site Ground page loading times, for not much different when using the W3TC plugin.

Though in SiteGround case, the page loading times have reduced slightly like in milliseconds to 1 sec in different client locations. But the above conclusion is an interesting fact from this case-study.

The GTmetrix test results were not that much conclusive. Even after reiterating the tests, the page load times were different in each case. So it was much difficult to use this testing tool to compare the page loading speeds for SiteGround GoGeek and Inmotion Hosting 1000s VPS plan.

In some cases, you can omit the first result, as it was taken for the first time loading.

For the SiteGround case, these were the test results.

New York City, New York, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

1.14s

75

87%

1.6mb

1.13s

75

88%

1.6mb

1.06s

75

89%

1.6mb

1.04s

75

89%

Dallas, Texas, USA

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.5mb

1.38s

75

83%

1.5mb

1.09s

75

88%

1.5mb

1.09s

74

88%

1.5mb

1.17s

77

87%

Melbourne, Australia

Page Size

Load Time

Requests

Faster than of tested websites

1.6mb

2.53s

78

62%

1,6mb

1.97s

75

72%

1.6mb

2.13s

75

69%

1.6mb

2.62s

75

60%

Vancouver, Canada

Total Page Size

Page Load Time

Requests

1.60mb

2.1s

68

1.51mb

3.4s

73

1.51mb

4.4s

73

Conclusion for Stage #3

As you can observe the comparison in the case of NewYork server, the SiteGround system was 0.4 secs faster than the Inmotion Hosting server. In the Dallas case, there is a minute reduction of 0.2 secs in the case of SiteGround compared to IMH-VPS-1000s.

The Melbourne client location test conducted for IMH, didn’t give a correct average page load time. So though the SiteGround server shows less time for this location, we cannot give conclusive evidence on this test location.

As usual for GTmetrix testing tool, the page loading speeds were different with different iterations. Only the GTmetrix technical team should be able to answer why these discrepancies occur.

Conclusion

As a general case, we can understand the comparison of Inmotion Hosting vs SiteGround. By default, the SiteGround has faster page load times and also costs less. For the half the price of that of Inmotion Hosting VPS server, you can get drastic improvement if used alone.

If you are using the W3TC plugin, there is not much variation.

Using Cloudflare and W3TC plugin, you couldn’t find much variation in page loading times in both the hosting plans i.e VPS-1000S and GoGeek.

A VPS server is supposed to be faster and should give more quick page loading times. But that’s not the case here, as seen. Also SiteGround does not boast about its plan as VPS hosting. It calls this as a specialized hosting for WordPress sites.

So finally, I recommend SiteGround GoGeek plan compared to Inmotion Hosting VPS 1000s plan, price wise and performance wise also, especially for WordPress sites. This can be seen from the above tests.

Do you have any doubts in this case-study? Are you using Inmotion Hosting VPS 1000s PLAN and still have any problems? Do you have any problem with SiteGround GoGeek plan? Are your WordPress sites fast enough compared to the above test results?

Please comment in the section below, if you have any opinion on the above case-study. Share this article, if you like it. It took me about 3 days to write this article and I enjoyed the whole process.